0168 One of the benefits of chapter two, establishing that Lacan is not a Buddhist, is the appearance of the three-level interscope in this examination. 

Two e-works may assist in appreciating the interscope: A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction.  Both are available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

0169 If I step back and summarize, then the following diagram captures many of my associations.  The figure contains a perspective-level category-based nested form and a virtual nested form in the category of secondness.

As far as this examiner is concerned, the perspective level is what Zizek configures.  The perspective level is full of symbols (that is, labels that are explicit abstractions).  So, I purloin Lacan’s term, “symbolic”, as an additional banner for the perspective level.

Remember, Christ_3c can be excluded by a Relativist One_3c, who stands outside the jurisdictions found on the situation and content levels.  When that happens, the perspective-level potential changes from ‘truth and synthesis’_1c to ‘synthetic truth’_1c.

The situation level receives Lacan’s term, “real” for an additional banner.

The content level employs Lacan’s term, “imaginary” for an additional banner.

0170 Chapter three turns to quantum mechanics.  Quantum mechanics offers scientific proposals about what is going on when Newtonian mechanics does not provide good models.  Quantum mechanics applies to molecules, atoms, protons, neutrons, electrons and other subatomic particles.  For one difference, energy is no longer continuous.  It gets quantized.  Plus, the quantized energy is embodied by a tiny thing that is both particle and wave.

0171 For example, in a carbon atom, the nucleus (consisting of 6 positively charged protons and 6 noncharged neutrons) behaves mostly like a particle.  A single positively-charged tiny pin-sized thing stands in the center of the atom.  Because mass relates to energy and energy relates to wavelength, the nucleus is small because bigger mass means shorter wavelengths.

Meanwhile, lighter, negatively charged electrons “orbit” the carbon nucleus as standing waves.  Electron orbits are three-dimensional standing waves, that can be occupied by two electrons, because each electron has a magnetic moment, and these magnetic moments may couple like a pair of bar magnets. “Spin up” couples with “spin down”.

0172 Zizek locates quantum mechanics in a shift between appearance (a measurement of a particle or wave, depending on the apparatus) and the natural – unmeasured – habitus of the nanoscopic thing itself (which gets reduced to either a particle or a wave by our scientific measurements).

0173 I ask, “Does appearance or measurement (in the reality of science) call to mind the term, ‘materialism’, even though the data supports highly mathematical constructs of wave forms that call to mind the term, ‘idealism’?”

Many chemists imagine that the wave-functions of the second energy level for carbon are more real than the first natural-philosophical abstraction of the thing itself.

0174 Yes, the modern chemist triumphally replaces the noumenon with a model based on its phenomena.

Say what?

A mathematical model of the electron in an orbital stands for what is in the chemist’s judgment.

 0175 Zizek argues that a correct reading of quantum mechanics opens the way to “materialism”, that is, “a doctrine of the material”.  Or, something like that.

Of course, ‘something’ is out of kilter with quantum mechanics, because the model, which is imaginary, is regarded as more relevant to inquiry than the thing itself, which is real, because the habitus of these tiny particle/waves ends up getting annihilated by our real scientific measuring apparatuses.

This is like the heroic investigator who proclaims, “In order to ascertain the reality of the situation, we had to destroy the situation itself.”

0176 Happily, for me, but not in the Buddhist sense of the word, Zizek never encountered the Peirce-based description of science, formulated in Comments on Jacques Maritain’s Book (1935) Natural Philosophy (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues).  The Positivist’s judgment tells me something about models and things themselves.

A judgment is a triadic relation consisting of three elements: relation, what is and what ought to be.  Of course, a well-trained philosopher will gag on these labels.  But, this concerns science, so the three elements are empty slots that are filled in through the synthetic process of association and implication, which is precisely how Zizek (as a wildly successful Lacanian psychoanalyst) operates.

When all three elements are filled in and assigned a unique category, the judgment becomes actionable.  The actionable judgment unfolds, according to the categorical assignments, into a category-based nested form where thirdness brings secondness into relation with firstness.

0177 Here is a picture of the Positivist’s judgment.

0178 A positivist intellect (relation, thirdness) brings the empirio-schematic judgment (what ought to be, secondness) into relation with the dyad, {the thing itself [cannot be objectified as] its observable and measurable facets} (what is,firstness).

Note how each element is assigned to one of Peirce’s categories.

0179 The positivist intellect has a rule.  Metaphysics is not allowed.  Since natural philosophy includes both physics (material and instrumental causations) and metaphysics (formal and final causations), natural philosophy is excluded.  That is what normal contexts do.  They exclude, complement and align with other normal contexts.

0180 The empirio-schematic judgment is a triadic relation that is imbued with secondness.  What does that imply?  A judgment is considered to be actual?  A specialized disciplinary language (relation, thirdness) brings mathematical and mechanical models (what ought to be, secondness) into relation with observations and measurements of phenomena (what is, firstness).

Yeah, that seems totally actual.

0181 Finally, the dyad, {a noumenon [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena}, does not contain two real elements, it only contains one thing that is considered from two points of view.

A theologian speaks of the thing itself being constituted as matter and form.  Matter and form are distinct real elements.  So, {matter [substance] form} belongs to secondness.

In contrast, a scientist speaks of phenomena as the foundation for scientific inquiry.  Phenomena are the observable and measurable facets of a noumenon.  But, phenomena cannot objectify their noumenon, even though both terms label the same entity.  The observable and measurable facets of an entity cannot objectify the thing itself. 

What is of the Positivist’s judgment is popularly labeled, “Kant’s slogan”.

For the theologian, the matter and the form of the noumenon are distinct, real elements. 

For the scientist, the thing itself is irrelevant for building models. Only its phenomena are relevant.

0182 An actionable judgment unfolds on the basis of its categorical assignments.

Here is a picture of the resulting nested form.

The normal context of the positivist intellect₃ brings the actuality of the empirio-schematic judgment₂ into relation with the possibility that ‘a noumenon [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena’₁.

0183 Zizek asks, “How can reality itself be wrong?”

Perhaps, ‘what is’ of the Positivist’s judgment is a good place to start.

0184 The empirio-schematics of quantum mechanics says that… as far as science is concerned… all we can do is observe and measure phenomena.  The model, based on data, is enough to hold the scientist’s interest.

Zizek responds by asking whether there is more to quantum phenomena that what our scientific measuring devices allow us to see.  Can there be hidden variables that may theoretically be measured, if only we could devise the apparatuses to measure the phenomena?

Who knows?

0185 Well, there is Bell’s theorem.  Bell’s theorem provides a criteria concerning the likelihood that another measurement apparatus could exist that would reveal a hidden variable.

For example, a metal-plate apparatus detects a photon (a quantized particle of light) as a particle.  An interferometer detects a photon as a wave.  Do the data correlate to such an extent as to rule out a third apparatus based on phenomena that does not classify light as either particle or wave?

0186 Well, it turns out that the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics goes to scientists who observe that photons can be entangled.

Entangled?

It is as if one machine in an airport issued two identical decks of cards.  Then, the two decks are given to two peoplewho are leaving the airport to totally different destinations.  Upon arrival, the person is instructed to go to the hotel bar, shuffle the deck, and have the bartender randomly select one card.  Then, the person calls in the identity of the selected card to a tabulator at the university near the airport.

0187 Of course, this study has been criticized as a scam to pay for drinks to university employees going to conferences around the world.  Please ignore such petty accusations.

0188 What do they find?

When the card from one deck, say in Barcelona, is first selected, and say, turns out to be the queen of spades, then the card from the other deck, say in Moscow, turns out to be any card other than the queen of spades.

After continuing the experiment for years, the observation never changes, even though each deck is perfectly identical at the moment of manufacture.

0189 Of course, this is impossible.  But, the story gives a taste of spooky at-a-distance measurements of the polarization (wave-property) of photons, emanating from one source and travelling in opposite directions at the speed of light.

But, I ask, “Why does Zizek bring up highly technical contemporary research in physics in order to establish his point? Why not rely on quantum mechanical concepts that have been around for decades?  Aren’t they strange enough?”

0190 Consider a chemistry experiment as the apparatus.

I start with carbon that has been atomized in a vacuum.  With respect to the outer orbitals, four electrons enter in the configuration of 2s²2p₃² (two electrons in spherical 2s and two electrons, in the three degenerate 2p orbitals).  Now, I slowly leak in some H₂ (gas), which immediately reacts as four hydrogen atoms (1s¹).  I observe a gaseous chemical product, CH₄, consisting of 8 electrons in the outer carbon orbitals and four hydrogen nuclei (H⁺) hanging within four degenerate orbitals centered on the carbon and occupied by electrons.

0191 Here is a picture.

Atomic carbon has four second-level orbitals that are not fully occupied with electrons.

Methane’s carbon has four degenerate second-level orbitals that are fully occupied with electrons.  Plus, methane has four hydrogen nuclei, each perched in its own fully occupied electron orbital.

0192 Every atom gets what it wants.

The carbon atom ends up with the satisfaction of four outer orbitals, configured as a hybridization of one 2s and three 2p into four 2sp₃ orbitals.  These four outer orbitals contain 8 electrons, two for each orbital.  The positively charged carbon nucleus is symmetrically surrounded with negatively charged electron waves.

Each hydrogen atom ends up with two electrons, which would fills its 1s orbital.  But, now the 1s orbital has given way to the carbon’s 2sp₃ orbital.  Each positively charged hydrogen nucleus is surrounded by a three-dimensional blanket of negative charge.

Plus, every negatively charged electron is magnetically paired in a standing wave.  Every electron occupies a stable orbital around a positively charged nucleus.

0193 Now, three issues arise (G, H, I) from the fact that the reaction pictured above converts into the following two-level interscope.

First (G), models of phenomena occupy the content-level actuality, rather than the thing itself.  The carbon atom_2a is already not the thing itself.  It_2a is an imaginary three-dimensional picture of the thing itself.

Second (H), on the situation level, a chemical apparatus_3b serves as a normal context.  So, the observed actuality_2b is already contextualized.  The apparatus_3b is not part of the system that is under investigation.  Yet, the content_2a cannot be situated_1b without it_3b.

Third (I), the previous two issues offers clues as to why quantum mechanics is relevant to Zizek’s big picture.  The noumenon is already veiled by a model that accounts for its phenomena.  Phenomena, in turn, objectify, not the noumenon, but the model.

And, I may add (I’) a note that the noumenon, the natural habitus of the thing itself_2a, even as reconfigured as a model_2a, is annihilated when measurement occurs.

The reagents are gone.  The products remain.

0194 The Real annihilates the Imaginary.

0195 Doesn’t that last point sound dramatic?

Well, the measurement of photons in the field of quantum physics is no different.

Once a photon is registered by a measuring apparatus, it_2a is toast.

For example, the natural habitus of a photon is to fly as a superposition of states and waves_2a.  A particular scientific apparatus will collapse the superposition in the process of making the measurement.  In other words, the photon is annihilated (or its habitus is forever changed).

0196 Here is a picture.

0197 On the content level, the normal context of what it is_3a brings the actuality of a superposition of states or waves_2ainto relation with the potential of the thing itself_1a.  The fact that I characterize the photon_2a as a superposition of waves_2a means that I, the investigator, have already replaced the noumenon_2a with an imaginary of what the noumenon must be_2a.

On the situation level, my imaginary_2a as phenomena_1b serves as matter to yield a form, a quantum measurement_2bmade by my measuring apparatus_3b.

0198 But, the realist in the back of the room shifts uneasily, saying, “Don’t you have it backwards?  Shouldn’t the content-level actuality_2a be labeled ‘real’ and the appearance that is conveyed by the measurement be labeled ‘imaginary’_2b?”

0199 Yes and no.

Yes, surely, the noumenon is more real to the natural philosopher.

No, phenomena are more real to the quantum physicist, because observations and measurements of phenomena belong to the empirio-schematic judgment (what ought to be, secondness, in the Positivist’s judgment) and Peirce’s category of secondness characterizes the realm of actuality.  In contrast, the noumenon (part of what is, firstness, in the Positivist’s judgment) associates to the realm of possibility.

Secondness (the realm of actuality) is more “real” than firstness (the realm of possibility).

0200 Contrary to Zizek’s discussion, the fact that the natural philosopher chooses the noumenon_2a and the quantum physicist chooses its phenomena_1b to receive the label, “reality”, does not mean that we have to choose between space and time.  Rather, it means that we have to choose between the noumenon and its phenomena.

Well, which would I choose as the noumenon, space or time, or both, or neither?

Clearly, the quantum mechanical equations that model the standing waves of electrons around nuclei in atoms and molecules rely on both space and time as variables.  Those variables go into equations that model data based on phenomena, not the thing itself.  So, one might wonder about the status of space and time.  Are they transcendentals or ontologicals?  

0201 Certainly, space and time are not divine.  But, they are not “not divine”, either.  They are used in models that may veil the noumenon, so that a model (veiling its noumenon) [can be objectified as] its phenomena.  Surely, that veiling makes what is of the Positivist’s judgment more palatable.

The other option is called “Copenhagen orthodoxy”.  Niels Bohr (1885-1962), one of the physicists involved in the founding of quantum mechanics, read the writings of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804).  So, he had a feeling that, as far as science goes, the noumenon is off limits.  So, his solution looks like the following.

0202 Zizek agrees with later commentators, who say that this is the worst option imaginable.

But, Zizek has a caveat.

It could be worse.

0203 What about better?

Well, this examination already has made an advance, by labeling the content-level as the home to the imaginary noumenon.  Here, the term “imaginary” does not suggest make-believe.  Rather, the term means that the noumenon is to be approached as an image.

All sensations are like images.

Yes, for the most part, a sensation means that ‘something is present’.  This is precisely how the natural philosopher encounters things.  Things are dyadic actualities of matter [substance] form.  Is that not like an image?

If matter is not present, then form is does not register with the sensorium.

0204 So, it makes no sense to place a sign over the imaginary and noumenon level that says, “This is not scientific, so please disregard.”

0220 Chapter four is titled, “The Sacred, the Obscene and the Undead”.

Zizek starts with a definition of parallax.  A parallax is the perceived shift of an object against its background caused when an observer changes position.  It reminds me of a postcard from Hawaii that depicts a tropical flower garden (when held one way) and an erupting volcano (when held in a slightly different way).

0221 Astrology is all about this type of phenomena.  From the point of view of a person on the planet Earth (the subject), the sun (the object) changes its zodiac sign (the background) every month or so.  The moon changes zodiac sign every two and one-third days.

0222 Of course, astrology can be associated to the elements of a category-based nested form.

0223 It makes me wonder about the spoken term, “location”.

Is being born when the sun is in the zodiac sign of Capricorn anything like being born in Los Angeles?

0224 Both the sign of Capricorn and Los Angeles are forms that locate the matter of a person, so the contiguity of [birth] applies to two jurisdictions, one celestial and one mundane.

The relevant category-based nested forms (pictured above) occupy the situation level.  What is curious about these two jurisdictions is that they already exist (as explicit abstractions) before a person is born.  That must happen on the content level, where [birth] is… if I may say… “explicit” but not “abstract”.

0225 May I call [birth] on the content-level, [gestation and labor]?

Then, [birth] on the situation-level is [born into].

One would think, since we use the same word for the contiguity, that the referents would be the same.  Indeed, one would think that one implies the other.  But, this is not the case.

0226 How so?

What if my parents flee the old country and live in a new country that is… well… foreign to them?

Then, I can be born in the sign of Capricorn but not be “born” into the jurisdiction of Los Angeles.  My birth occurs under one heaven, marked by the zodiac constellations.  My birth occurs in Los Angeles, which means that I belong to its jurisdiction.  The laws of Los Angeles apply to be.  But, I cannot be counted as a citizen.  My parents are foreigners.

In the narrow legal framework of distinct nation states, each operating under its own heaven, I am not to be and I am.

0227 Here is a picture of the nested forms for content and situation levels.  This two-level interscope is “sensible” according to A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues).

0228 What about the symbolic level?

Well, that is for the symbolic level to judge. I am simultaneously born, under the universal sign of Capricorn, and born again, into a jurisdiction whose name translates into “The Angels”.

0229 Okay, all the labels of the title of chapter four, “The Sacred, the Obscene and the Undead”, have been touched upon in the example.

The “sacred” refers to the category-based nested form on the level above sensible construction.  When sensible construction fails (as in the case here), it is time to consult the gods, or the judges, or the purveyors of social construction.

The “undead” refers the jurisdiction of Los Angeles, a city that is not alive, but not dead, either. That goes for me, as well.  I, the child of immigrants, exiles in a foreign land, am simultaneously both living (a person born within the jurisdiction of Los Angeles) and dead (held outside of the application of the law to its citizens).

0230 The “obscene” associates to the content-level potential of human copulation_1a, [gestation and labor]_2a as well as the normal context of human reproduction_3a.

Yes, it is a messy nasty business, but there are lucrative opportunities.

0231 For example, pornographers make lots of money depicting the obscene through various visual technologies.  Some are good at it.  Some are not so good.

0232 Indeed, here is the obscene story of how I came to be.

In Los Angeles, a pornographer runs a catering and party business as nice cover for… you know… the naughty aspects of his operations.  One spring, he contracts to arrange a dinner and dance party for the Committee for Profits and Propaganda (the CPP), an institution devoted to the integration of commercially successful cinema with big government (il)liberal messaging.

The pornographer has figured a new business model for his um… “documentaries”.  Since humans are so expensive, he would have his “genius” cousin build a mechanical simulator.  Then, he can start with humans, then switch to simulation, and save a ton of money.

0233 Now, his “genius” cousin works for a former (?) scientist, who lost his job when the aerospace industry in southern California downsized. The scientist now employs himself and occasionally, the “genius” related to the pornographer, in various exploratory projects in his make-shift laboratory.

He also buys and sells home-grown marijuana.

0234 Among the scientist’s diverse projects are two interesting items that attract the eyes of the genius cousin.

The first is an AI-style computer that looks like a human head, and is capable of learning how to move various mechanical contractors and extensors on its wooden body.  The scientist thinks that the robot will be life-like and light-weight enough to put into the passenger seat of an automobile (so one can drive in the highway lanes restricted to more than one passenger) and then back into the car’s trunk at home and at office.

Ideally, the wooden robot would learn how to get into the passenger seat and the trunk on its own.  Plus, play tunes, conduct conversations and other amenities.

0235 The second is an eight inch wooden tube, that looks just like solid wooden cylinder, but is hollowed out and layered with flammable plastic in a particular a fashion.  There is a small hole on one end and a larger hole on the other.  Once ignited, air is sucked through the small end and a flaming vortex ejects out the other end, to the distance of over five meters.

Here is the design.  The scientist makes several, but does not involve his genius assistant, because he does not want his work-building to burn down.

0236 The genius cousin figures that he can borrow the robot and use one of those furniture legs on the scientist’s desk.  He intends to glue the edge of the cylinder to one side of a door hinge and glue the other side to the wooden pelvis of the robot.  He also takes a big block of wood, after drilling a hole at a good angle for the hinged cylinder to “ride”.

0237 On the night of the CPP party, he brings the robot, cylinder and platform to the hotel where the pornographer is catering.  They have access to a conference room next to the ballroom.  The pornographer is well pleased.  The robot follows instructions quite well.  The team sets up the cameras and are ready to go. 

0238 The pornographer goes to the waiting staff, lines them up, then selects two specimens.  He needs them for a special detail, the rest can carry on serving the dinner, and so forth.  He brings the pair to his makeshift studio and offers them a deal.  His cousin would run the camera.  All the two needed to do was undress until naked, then kiss.  They would get $100 cash and then could go back waiting tables at the party.

But, they could not tell anyone about this filming business.

0239 After a brief discussion, Miguel and Gabriela agree.  It is a little embarrassing, since they are only acquaintances. They do what the boss asks for, then put their clothes back on and go back to work, serving the CPP banquet.

That is an easy 100 bucks.

0240 One part of the script accomplished, the genius assembles the simulation and soon enough, the wooden robot with an AI-head rhythmically thrusts the attached wooden cylinder into the platform’s portal.  The clacking is loud, but not so loud as to disturb the banquet speech next door.  The pornographer is delighted as the camera rolls, and the genius strives for various close ups.

After several minutes, the friction of wood rubbing on wood starts to produce smoke.

The pornographer laughs and yells, “I have a title!  Smoking hot love!”

0241 Smoke indicates fire.  Fire ignites the inner flammable-plastic conduit in the wooden cylinder and a collimated flame starts to shoot from the region that the cameras are focused on.

Then, a surprising sequence of events occurs.

0242 The AI-style robot head, which had been sort of figuring out what the pornographer and his cousin are up to (in a physics sort of way), suddenly acts like any human adult male who has a flaming vortex emanating from his eight-inch cylinder.  He goes berserk.

He stands up and runs directly through the paper-thin wall of the conference room and enters the ballroom, while yelling a barrage of computer-based warnings.

0243 Of course, the hundred or so participants at the CPP banquet are stunned and fascinated by the sudden appearance of a distressed wooden robot with a well-collimated flame erupting out of his you-know-what.

When the flame sets a nearby table on fire, panic ensues.  The robot continues further into the room, setting more tables on fire.  Someone pulls the hotel’s fire alarm.

0244 In the mayhem, Miguel and Gabriela end up locking themselves inside a mop-and-bucket closet.  They pray. Then, the noise recedes and then embrace.  Miguel asks Gabriela to marry him.  She accepts.  Then, an obscene act that the pornographer would have loved to capture on film ensues.  In the process, I am conceived.

I am born in Los Angeles, when the sun is in the sign of Capricorn.

0245 So, what is the corresponding symbolic level?

Here is my guess.

0246 On the imaginary level, the normal context of human reproduction_3a brings the actuality of the dyad, {pregnant woman [gestation and labor] mother and infant}_2a, into relation with the possibility of human copulation… and… conception_1a.

On the real level, the normal context of the subject’s birthplace_3b brings the actuality of the dyad, {a person [is born in] Los Angeles}_2b, into relation with the potential of a location, where “location” is a mundane jurisdiction_1b.

On the symbolic level, the normal context of the Legal One_3c brings the actuality of the dyad, {acquire citizenship [wealth and power] exercise order within jurisdiction}_2c, into relation with jouissance_1c, the potential of ‘a synthetic truth’_1c.

0247 What about Lacan’s terminology?

First, since jouissance_1c belongs to the perspective level and since the logic of firstness is inclusive and allows contradictions, then the virtual nested form in the category of firstness is very much alive.

Perspective-level jouissance_1c virtually brings the situation-level potential of ‘identifying location’_1b (in the normal context of the subject’s birthplace_3b) into relation with the content-level potential of ‘copulation and conception’_1a.

Indeed, Miguel and Gabriela, as foreigners, are not supposed to do what citizens are supposed to do because… well… the jurisdiction’s synthetic truth_1c does not account for certain possibilities_1a.

0248 Previously, Lacan’s terminology with respect to secondness applies to the perspective level.  Objet a_2c emerges from (and situates) jouissance_1c and is shown in the following diagram.

[The citizen’s birthright] expresses [wealth and power].  [It] is the substance between acquisition_2c and the exercise of order_2c.  [It] is a petit objet a, a clue to the realness of the objet a_2c.

0249 Lacan’s terminology is reproduced, like a fractal pattern on a higher level of organization, by the three-level interscope, in the following manner.

0250 Today, when I walk though a mall near the Pallisades, everyone sees a person [born into] Los Angeles_2b.  My own presence_2b is a clue that I am a legal citizen_2c and have a mother who went into labor, years ago_2a.  Everyone witnesses this particular person shopping, like everyone else, as a petit objet a writ large.  They presume that the petit objet a writ large signals an objet a writ large.

No one asks me, “Are you a citizen of Los Angeles?”, unless they have taken an oath of office to do so.

No one asks me, “Have you repaid your mother for her investment in gestation and labor to manufacture you?”.  Who would be so rude?

0251 In short, the virtual nested form in the category of secondness appears to be a dyadic actuality writ large.  It is like a juiced up version of the perspective-level actuality_2c.

To me, this accounts for (in part), why Lacan, and Zizek following the master, introduce juiced up terminology, forcing the inquirer to see the three levels of imaginary, real and symbolic from an alternate point of view.  Think parallax!  Or maybe, think fractal!  How about “think shifty”?

0252 Indeed, to me, it seems that Zizek’s Christian atheism is made possible through a psychoanalytic technique, involving shifting locations within a content-level object_2a, corresponding to {what I think [contiguity] what I say}_2a.

Or, something like that.

Hmmm.

Is there a container_2a within which this opportunistic shifting of points of view takes place?

0253 Is it the analytic dyad?

Or is it… hmmm?

0254 Okay, if Christian atheism is anything like therapeutic psychoanalysis, then spoken words from the actuality_2a, what I think [contiguity] what I say_2a, are associated to slots in a three-level interscope.  The analysand and the analyst look at the same foregrounded object, but with a shifting framework in the background.  In one session, the background is Imaginary, Real and Symbolic.  At another session, it swerves to noumenon, phenomena and model.  At other moments, it gets juiced up to obscene, undead and sacred.

All the while, what I think [contiguity] what I say_2a is virtually situated by the analytic dyad_2b, which Freud invents in practice and which Lacan attempts to rescue in terms of theory.

0255 Here are labels for each of the three levels, as they appear in this examination.

0256 At this juncture, I would like to note that the very first column also provides labels.  These labels are rather bland.  However, they coincide with the scholastic interscope for how people think, appearing in Looking at John Deely’s Book (2010) “Semiotic Animal” (located in Razie Mah’s blog for the month of October 2023).

The scholastics impose expectations onto each level.

These expectations include universality, for the content level, intelligibility, for the situation level and judgment, for the perspective level.

0257 Here is a picture of those expectations for the actualities in the interscope produced in this examination of Zizek’s text.

0258 Chapter five is titled, in translation, “Neither Human nor Divine nor Nature”.

To start, I ask, “Where have I been?”

0259 Zizek is great fun to read. And, examinations should be fun as well.  Examinations may contact touchy subjects, in a medical prostatic protocol sort of way.  “Touchy” is what Zizek does best.

I now count to ten.

0260 At first, I intuitively arrive at a nested form as an initial guess.  Here is a picture.

0261 Second, I figure out that Christ_3c can be replaced by a Relativist One_3c.  Or maybe I should use the label, “Qualifying One_3c“, as the one who sets the qualifications_3c.  The Qualifying One_3c operates on the potential of ‘synthetic truth’_1c.

Third, I suspect that Lacan’s term, “jouissance”, associates to the potential of ‘synthetic truth’_1c.

0262 Fourth, in when discussing how Lacan is not a Buddhist, a law of economics constellates as a situation-level nested form.

Here is a diagram.

0263 Fifth, when discussing quantum mechanics, the content-level comes to nothingness in a weird sort of way.  At first, the content level, like the noumenon, is meant to be disregarded. Then later, when it can no longer be ignored, it turns into something like a model substituting for the noumenon.  Then, the content-level accommodates a projection from the perspective level.

Lacan uses the term achose (no thing or “a” thing) to label this content-level simulacra_2a.

0270 Sixth, for Zizek’s configuration of Christian atheism, the previous points may be expressed as a three-level interscope.

Which makes me wonder, “How can the content-level dyad of {raw materials [construct] specified product}_2a be a projection of the perspective-level dyad of {capital & acquisition [wealth and power] social & exercise of order}_2c?”

Seventh, am I wondering about the objet a writ large?

0271 Of course, Zizek does not come close to describing the interscope pictured above.

He does not imagine an objet a writ large.

Instead, this examiner suggests that the above interscope is within the spectrum of Zizek’s wide ranging discourse.

All that I am doing is making associations and discussing implications.

Zizek’s text overflows with raw material.

The above interscope is like a specified product_2a.

0272 Eighth, I ask, “What is the advantage of the above permutation of the interscope for [wealth and power]_2c?”

Well, the interscope portrays three levels for something very close to economics in our current Lebenswelt.

0273 Ninth, the next figure presents a similar “economics-oriented” interscope characteristic of the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

Note how the potentials resonate across Lebenswelts.

0274 What does this imply?

The interscope for our industrial age recapitulates the interscope for the Acheulean stone age.  Consequently, the elements that Lacan labels may well be hominin adaptations.

0275 Tenth, this examination associates jouissance to potential on all three levels.  The perspective level is paradigmatic.

0276 On top of that, objet a and petit objet a belong the perspective level.  These objects are writ small.

Here is a picture of the objets a writ small for an example provided by this examination.

The same relational beings are present in the entire interscope as writ large.

0277 Okay, that where I have been, counting one to ten.